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virtualflying

PFPX Runways

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Ever since I've been using PFPX for my flight planning, it has always screwed me over on runways. I was flying into AMS the other day, and on final approach to RW06, Tower came on informing me that was not the right runway and it was closed. It has also happened at London, departing the wrong runway. Has anyone else ever had this issue? I seem to always get wrong runways.

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This can sometimes have something to do with weather settings I find.

I use AS16 so I have PFPX setup to get it's weather from there. This means that AS16 has to be running and have downloaded the weather before planning a flight in PFPX otherwise the weather 'snapshot' will be different to what it currently is. PFPX will then give you a runway based on this outdated weather.

I usually have AS16 running and updated before opening PFPX. Even if you have already opened PFPX you can refresh the weather before planning a flight. This should then give you a much better runway prediction.

Of course there are times where at say Gatwick, PFPX might give you the unused runway in which case I guess you have to have a bit of operational knowledge to know which runways are used for departures etc.

How are you setup? Hope this helps somewhat.

 


Johnny Crockett
7700K @5ghz | Asus GTX 1070 | G.Skill 16GB 3600 | P3D V4

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Johnny,

I'm sort of a noob at PFPX, so I have a server subscription until September. I usually have the latest airac via Navigraph, and for my weather settings it is normally set at "Online". I do have Active Sky Next, but I always thought that the server had better weather for planning. Would the navdata tell you if runways are only for departure and arrival?

 

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Access the flightradar24 website and zoom in on the airport you are planning to depart from / arrive to. It should give you an idea of which runways are in use at that time. You could also try using LiveATC, search for the airports you are interested in and listen to the ATIS  broadcasts from them.

If you are flying online both VATSIM and IVAO pretty much use real weather so setting ASN to live weather mode should have you in step with them both (depending on which one you use) and then setting PFPX to access ActiveSky weather. In any case, even if PFPX has suggested the wrong runways/approaches you can always modify those on the way down once ATC has given you the actives.

Clear as mud :wink:


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Tony K.
 

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As far as I know PFPX bases the runway purely on the current wind conditions. Meanwhile a lot of airports have preferential runways, that PFPX knows nothing about. That means that sometimes certain runways are used even if there are tailwinds or that PFPX uses the 06L while 06R is the preferential runway.

Of course it can also happen that the conditions change between the moment of creating the FPL and the moment of takeoff or landing.

So it's always good to also look at the charts of the airport and Flightradar24 to see what runway is or should be in use.

As far as I know this also how real world dispatchers do their job (albeit without the FR24 part).

 

 

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You can always over ride what PFPX selects for the departure and arrival runways, based on your weather observations, etc.

 


Glenn Wilkinson

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The Vatsim controllers, if online, are enforcing the rwy 6/24 closure. I guess they are mimicking real life and I have no idea how long the rwy is going to be close to for. I found out about that the last time I flew out of there and had to change rwy to 18C from 24. PFPX has no way of knowing this so you will have to manually over ride this. 


Eric 

 

 

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Most of the time I look at previous flights, and I can never really find what runways are active. Is there a way to see if certain runways are just for departure and arrival? This happened at Heathrow, I departed from an arrival runway not knowing.

 

Thank you all for the replies though, greatly appreciate it.

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On 10/05/2017 at 9:28 AM, virtualflying said:

Johnny,

I'm sort of a noob at PFPX, so I have a server subscription until September. I usually have the latest airac via Navigraph, and for my weather settings it is normally set at "Online". I do have Active Sky Next, but I always thought that the server had better weather for planning. Would the navdata tell you if runways are only for departure and arrival?

 

No harm using the subscription for weather, just as long as Active Sky Next is set to live real time weather. In theory PFPX then 'should' give you correct runways based on weather conditions and then it would only be a matter of confirming the runway is correct operationally (some used departures, some used as arrivals etc) I can't quite remember but I think I initially started out with using the subscription but too often the runways were wrong so I just started using ASN linked to PFPX.


Johnny Crockett
7700K @5ghz | Asus GTX 1070 | G.Skill 16GB 3600 | P3D V4

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Thanks Johnny, I'll start using ASN. I also have another question about the Cost Index. Whenever I generate flights I can never find a "CI 85" or something like that in my flight plan but I see others do. Is there a setting I need to enable?

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16 hours ago, virtualflying said:

Most of the time I look at previous flights, and I can never really find what runways are active. Is there a way to see if certain runways are just for departure and arrival? This happened at Heathrow, I departed from an arrival runway not knowing.

 

Thank you all for the replies though, greatly appreciate it.

You normally can find this in the airport charts. I use Navigraph/Lido charts for instance, and if there is a preferential runway, it is noted on the AOI charts.

For AMS you can also find this information in the publicly availabe charts here (just do a text search for "preferential":

http://www.ais-netherlands.nl/aim/2017-03-16-AIRAC/eAIP/html/eAIP/EH-AD-2.EHAM-en-GB.html#eham-ad-2.24

And for LHR:

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadbasic/pamslight-C8201463D52725FA24D26E0335BEC1E9/7FE5QZZF3FXUS/EN/AIP/AD/EG_AD_2_EGLL_en_2017-04-27.pdf

2 hours ago, virtualflying said:

Thanks Johnny, I'll start using ASN. I also have another question about the Cost Index. Whenever I generate flights I can never find a "CI 85" or something like that in my flight plan but I see others do. Is there a setting I need to enable?

It depends on the aircraft you are flying and whether the available performance tables enable you to enter a cost index. 

Otherwise on the Flightplanning tab in the Aircraft category there is a textbox for Cruise. Normally this says LRC or M0.78. But you can als fill in CI85 if you want for use a cost index (or any other number for that matter). 

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6 hours ago, groentesoep said:

It depends on the aircraft you are flying and whether the available performance tables enable you to enter a cost index. 

Otherwise on the Flightplanning tab in the Aircraft category there is a textbox for Cruise. Normally this says LRC or M0.78. But you can als fill in CI85 if you want for use a cost index (or any other number for that matter). 

 

 

Bastiaan, 

I normally use the default aircraft templates, like PMDG and Aerosoft Airbus. Do these include the cost index's?

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9 hours ago, virtualflying said:

 

 

Bastiaan, 

I normally use the default aircraft templates, like PMDG and Aerosoft Airbus. Do these include the cost index's?

The PMDG one does for sure. For the Airbus I have different performance files (from here), so I'm not sure whether the default one has a cost index.

Best way to find out is to try. If a cost index is not supported, you are not able to fill it in.

 

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18 hours ago, groentesoep said:

The PMDG one does for sure. For the Airbus I have different performance files (from here), so I'm not sure whether the default one has a cost index.

Best way to find out is to try. If a cost index is not supported, you are not able to fill it in.

 

Where would I see it then? I can't find it...

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